How to get a state budget: Can New Jersey learn from Connecticut?

That there may be no second acts in life, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it plainly, ought to prompt Governor Christie to pause in some of his pursuits, notably his approach to the state budget. He might take a close look, for example, at what his counterpart in Connecticut, Governor Dannel P. Malloy has just accomplished in his state.

Malloy negotiated with his state’s unions and reached an agreement (still to be ratified) to balance the budget. The budget includes givebacks in health care, pension benefits and wages and also includes record tax increases and program cuts.

The $40.1 billion, two-year budget includes investments in job creation, as well as cuts in spending, concessions from state employees ($1.6 billion) and tax increases ($1.5 billion)--approximately equal measures, please note--while keeping the safety net intact and supporting business and industry as they focus on creating jobs. ‘Sharing the sacrifice to save the state’ is the plan.

The state estimates, moreover, that it will save $21.5 billion over two decades through structural changes in the compensation of public employees.

Wikipedia.orgNew Jersey State House

Meanwhile, back at our ranch, Governor Christie refuses to consider any tax increases, rants and rails against public employee unions, demonizes opponents in the legislature, and threatens to resist, shall we say, Supreme Court decisions not to his liking. Not what one would call a problem-solving approach to governance or, for that matter, a “good faith” approach to negotiations. And then there is the disagreeable lack of respect that all too frequently characterizes the governor’s rhetoric. Is incivility really essential to his style of governing?

Malloy’s approach to put his state’s house in fiscal order, in brief, is summed up in this document and the underpinnings to his approach to the state’s budget are here.

In a front page story in the New York Times, Malloy offers some observations about the budget deal: It’s “historic,” he said

“…because of the way we achieved it—we respected the collective-bargaining process and we respected each other, negotiating in good faith, without fireworks and without anger.”

It’s no easier in Connecticut than it is in New Jersey. Both states face enormous deficits and challenges. But, Connecticut has a budget, or it certainly looks that way, while, here, in New Jersey, we aren’t even close. Here, the battle continues and the governor remains on the attack.

Can’t we try another approach, Governor Christie? Malloy looks like he may have one that works.